On this day in 1883, many Texas cowboys went on strike against their bosses, absentee ranchers. The cowboys' grievances, however, were against developments that proved permanent. As closed-range...(Read More)

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NEWELL, CHESTER

NEWELL, CHESTER (1803–1892). Chester Newell, Episcopal clergyman, was born in Massachusetts on July 8, 1803; he graduated from Yale in 1831 and from the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia in 1834. After serving as a missionary in Tennessee he moved to Texas in 1837. For a year he operated a school at Velasco, then spent some time at Houston gathering material for a history, after which he returned to New York.

In 1838 he published The History of the Revolution in Texas, Particularly of the War of 1835 & 1836; Together with the Latest Geographical, Topographical and Statistical Account of the Country. . . . In that year he applied for appointment as a missionary to Texas, but he was refused because of complaints from Texas that he had neglected his ministerial duties while there. He died in Savannah, Georgia, on June 24, 1892, apparently never having revisited Texas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Minutes of the Foreign Committee, Archives of the Episcopal Church, Austin. Andrew Forest Muir, "William Fairfax Gray," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, December 1959.